The Guinness World Record for the longest underwater breath-hold has just been shattered – Aleix Segura from Spain held his breath for 24 minutes 3 seconds, after breathing Oxygen as part of his breath-up, on February 28th 2016 at the 17th Mediterranean Dive Show in Barcelona.

O2 assisted breath-hold is Guinness World Record and a different discipline to the Freediving discipline of Static Apnea (which Aleix is also a World National Record holder in with a 10min+ breath-hold). In O2 assisted breath-hold the diver breathes pure-Oxygen for a period before the attempt and allows for much longer breath-holds than normally possible.

“The proposal for the record attempt arrived a number of weeks before the show. We gathered some info and as you can imagine the doctors warned us about the likely dangerous scenarios but I tested it with my safety team and everything seemed to work just fine with no problems, so we went ahead especially considering that I also got support from a specialized doctor and his fellows as well as a specialized ambulance by the pool in case of any problem.

I am happy to set this Guinness World Record because it involved not only me and Freediving, but also the work of many other people. This remains a spectacle and experimental field rather than true apnea/freediving as a sport, which is what we all care about, but I hope it can be interesting and entertaining for people.”

The previous record was held by Stig Severinsen who set a 22 minute O2 assisted breath-hold in 2012 as part of a Discovery DocumentaryGoran Colak with a 22min 30sec breath hold in 2013.